Qantas To Fly First Ever Non-Stop Flights Between Brisbane and Los Angeles
BRISBANE, 12 February 2004

Qantas today announced it would commence direct flights between Brisbane and Los Angeles, the first time any airline has offered non-stop scheduled services on the route.

The Chief Executive Officer of Qantas Airways, Geoff Dixon, said Qantas would operate three Boeing 747 non-stop Brisbane-Los Angeles services a week from 14 June 2004. These services will be in addition to the daily Qantas flights from Brisbane to Los Angeles via Auckland, and will take the number of services on the route to 10 per week.

"These new services make it possible, for the first time ever, for American tourists to fly direct to the Sunshine State, and provide easier access to the many world class tourist attractions throughout Queensland," Mr Dixon said.

"They also offer Queenslanders a more convenient way to get to the USA."

Mr Dixon said Qantas had significantly boosted capacity between Australia and the USA over the past six months.

"From next month, Qantas will be offering more scheduled capacity between Australia and Los Angeles than we ever have before, including during the peak period of the Sydney Olympics," he said. "In addition, we continue to operate three flights a week to Honolulu."

Mr Dixon said Qantas had been flying to the USA for 50 years and had invested billions of dollars in this market, including dedicating six new Extended Range Boeing 747-400s to non-stop USA services.

The new Qantas non-stop Brisbane-Los Angeles services will be operated by two-class Boeing 747-400 aircraft on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

I'm glad to see more Americans interested in visiting Australia, and this route will sure help accomplish just that. Didn't UA operate a flight to BNE? Or was that a continuation of their LAX/SFO-SYD service?

Australia is a great place to visit...great people, too. My parents went for the first time last year and can't wait to get back, and their visit to Koolangotta (sp?) was definitely a highlight. I've also been to Aussie, though 17 years ago, and am LONG overdue to get back.

While I'm a loyal UA man...I will say my experiences on QF in 1987/88 were commendable, and I'd consider/recommend flying them as well.

And the winner for best actress is....REESE WITHERSPOON for 'Walk the Line'!!!!!!!!

With the Australian dollar being as strong as it is (having risen more against the US dollar than even the Euro), this is a great time for Australians to visit the United States. They're always welcome here!

Just a warning to all Americans - now that Brisbane has direct flights, look out for an influx of people wearing socks below their thongs, unable to spell, and finishing all their sentences with "but".

And if you're visiting from the US, for god's sake, stay away from that horrid excuse for beer, XXXX!

Just checked on Galileo, no service has yet been entered however I would imagine it shoould be listed soon. I guess it will most likely leave mid afternoon at about 2pm perhaps and out of LAX at about 11.30pm. Lets see how right I am when it is released.

Nevertheless it is fantastic news. I wonder this had anything to do with NZ doing AKL to SFO??

This will now bring LAX services to 43 744 services per week (3 to BNE, 18 to SYD. 7 to MEL, 12 to AKL, 3 to NYC) and 3 x 743 services to HNL

And the rest of Queensland? Well maybe we won't support it and just have to keep looking for alternatives out of Cairns (or by some miracle Townsville becomes International again - wonder who remembers that?)

"Maybe some of my old mates at Qantas saw my post in the previous thread discussing this"

Either that or the Qantas thinktank finally have got the knack of implementing the bleeding obvious.

I would have thought that with some of the ranges of aircraft being promoted that PER-LHR could be direct in the very near future with the other two direct in the not too distant future (within a decade?).

The Brisbane route is not the financial gold mine that the SYD-LAX route is, which is why I mentioned in a previous thread that they would need a two class config and go for volume (the SYD market offers nearly always full business and first class cabins, something that the BNE, nor MEL market can produce).

Let's hope this market gets opened up as much as the European markets, which would be good for everyone in the long run.

Yes B727-200 it will be interesting to see how it goes and actually also the effect it has on SYD-LAX. QF would probably have an idea of how much some of the SYD-LAX traffic originated out of Queensland - oops sorry Brisbane (as there is nothing else in Queensland other than the great south east corner is there?).

Not that anyone cares but can anyone remember how many TSV-LAX flights there were?

For the question about T-4, AA can only support the SYD flights with the few gates that T-4 has. When they got rid of T-3, they lost quite a bit of gate space. They could have kept some narrowbody service over there to open up more room for QF. Even though I hated the T-3 AA connections, I didn't like the fact that they gave the gates away. This is just speculation on my part.

When QF announced their order for the 747-400ER, they also announced that they would be flying DFW-AKL-SYD route either late last year or this year. I have yet to see it. Maybe they are waiting for the new DFW international terminal to open up.

It's good to see QF open more city-pairs. That'll make it easier to fly from Cairns back to LAX.

It will be interesting to see if the connecting traffic from Perth/Adelaide etc that now goes through Sydney for their LAX service will go to Brisbane instead. I would imagine that the BNE/LAX airfare will be marginally cheaper than its Sydney counterpart due to less airport taxes and slightly shorter route length.

Somehow I dont think you'll see QF go double daily from Auckland anytime soon. You will see them ramp up Brisbane services to daily as the market grows however.

Direct Perth-London services will only happen if Virgin Atlantic does them. I cant see either QF or BA taking any interest in it unless someone else does first.

Sydscott: However flights between PER and BNE are more expensive than flights between PER and SYD. Fares from PER to LAX give you the option of going via MEL or SYD currently for the same price, so I imagine going via BNE would also be the same price.

Your probably right PER744. I'm sure in the end QF will charge the same airfare from Brisbane that they do from Sydney and Melbourne. It'll be interesting to see how their load factors go and how quickly they add frequencies.

The new Qantas non-stop Brisbane-Los Angeles services will be operated by two-class Boeing 747-400 aircraft

I know that QF's 743s are in a two-class config., but I thought that all the 744s were three class. Does anyone know how many QF 744s are in each config? I assume that all the 744ERs are three class...

Great to hear about the new BNE-LAX route.
I wounder how much effect it will have on the QF 25 - QF 26 that originates in BNE and goes to LAX via AKL. I am sure that the majority of pax would prefer to fly direct. Could the 25-26 one day simply start and end in AKL?
Also one more question . . . What effect will this have on ANZ on their own BNE-AKL-LAX route????? Will they too loose pax simply because now QF offer direct services?
Maybe QF aren't going after ANZ head to head on the AKL-SFO route, but I am sure they will some damage to them on the Brisbane / Los Angeles route.

Bottom line of my story is that QF always said that there was never enough Business Class travellers from BNE to LAX to warrant a dedicated non-stop route. When NZ/AN were a thing, there apparently was, and now there is again.

I just don't think that QF has a caring enough culture for its premium passenger. Forget the bells and whistles, give us some decent service.

Moorhussy
What are you talking about???
QF do not offer First Class on the LAX-AKL sector!!
You may have been given a first class seat that is sold as Business class. As did some of the Economy passengers who are issued Business class seats even though they are sold as economy.
So you did not get First Class service, only the (old) seat.

Hey Tsv, the North end of Queensland is the best, BNE is just the bigger international gateway

Who knows, maybe one day we will see a USA service triangulate through CNS (eg. LAX-CNS-BNE/SYD-LAX). Unfortunately I don't think the runway in CNS or TSV has the length for the ultra long haul departures.

At a guess I'd say that both BNE (to the west towards the International area) and TSV (both east and west with a bit of resumption) can extend if necessary but CNS might be a bit limited as there is the Barron River at the northern end and the approach to the south is pretty much fixed by the CBD.